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zucchini

Food reader, you have no doubt been enticed by the delicate and intricate recipes — and their accompanying carefully-styled photos — for squash blossoms that involve stuffing them, breading them, and other impossible tasks that will cause anyone to never prepare squash blossoms again.

Stuffing the blossom is an activity best reserved for brain surgeons and those suffering from various obsessive-compulsive disorders. The blossom tears apart easily as you try to stuff it, and easier still in the pan. Those enticed to bread the blossoms and fry them will enjoy the result as much as anything that’s breaded and fried, but the delicate taste is diminished.

Just sauté them for a couple minutes in a bit of olive oil and butter, salt and pepper. The result is beautiful, the taste is vegetable-floral and delicate, and the texture will be firm.

Sadly, you may never even get to try. Even at farmers markets, vendors don’t want to sell them. “They wilt less than a day after they’re picked. No one will buy wilted blossoms,” says my neighborhood farm-to-overpriced-market owner. Yes, they may look wilted when you buy them. Just soak them in cold water for an hour, and they miraculously revive (see photo, above). The same applies for the blossoms of zucchini plants (whose vines produce blossoms in even greater abundance).

I’ve prepared some food-porn, complete with a bit of over-saturated color, to emphasize the point. Below, the versatile and supple blossoms are shown solo, and lavished on a pork roast. White wine of course.